Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is a holiday when people express their affection with gifts and greetings. It is sometimes believed that the origins came from Roman festivals celebrating the coming of spring, but the true origin is vague. Another common legend is that it was named after St. Valentine, who defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare husbands from war. It is, for this reason, the day is associated with love. The concept of love is deeply rooted in the Bible.

There are four types of love: storge, philia, eros and agape. A child seems to acquire these stages of love in their development. The first love is storge. The infant needs the love of family to develop a sense of belonging. He or she receives love from both Mom and Dad. Security comes from both male and female perspectives of love. This is a love for relatives or kinship. He or she learns to perform in a group setting. If for any reason storge love is not developed, the child will have difficulty in group performance. Or they will compensate by belonging to the wrong group, such as a cult or gang. Secondly, there is philia love. The child learns to love one outside the family who is not related. This a true friendship love. He or she discovers love or affection toward other people, animals or nature. The child places his trust in something other than his immediate family. The boy or girl learns to appreciate the world around him or her. As the child grows up, a new love grips his or her whole being. This is eros love. Eros is a romantic or sexual love. The child has grown up to a new stage when the body is getting ready for procreation. The body is developing and causing strong feelings of independence from storge and philia loves. This is the seed of most social illnesses.

Let’s look at Genesis 2:25. It reads, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” This was after the creation before the fall of mankind. Now let’s read Genesis 3:7. It reads, “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked: and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.”

This was after they disobeyed God, and sin came upon them. Adam and Eve knew not the storge love because they were created. They knew not philia love because they were the only human couple. But the exposure of eros love was so private that they knew the emotion of shame.

Shame is the moral that contains the eros love from out-of-control activity. In time, intellectualism began to remove shame from eros love.

In the last message to Daniel the prophet, it says, “But thou , O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Intellectualism without morals can create contempt. Contempt creates a drive for more activity without morals. The last love is agape love. This is the unconditional love of God. This is the moral love that sustains all human love in perspective. Without God, all are rampant.

Romans 1: 28 says, “And even as they did not retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.”